• If Russia Started a War in the Baltics, NATO Would Lose — Quickly
    159 replies, posted
[QUOTE=Dark RaveN;49666446]This post is short of a crying eagle.[/QUOTE] He's right though, collective airforces of NATO outnumber RuAF by a large margin in addition to being technically, logistically superior and with better infrastructure. However, somewhere around the time first engagements between NATO proper and Russia begin, nukes are mentioned in UN, at which point the conflict is brought to a ceasefire and peace negotiations begin, which isn't pleasant for anyone involved, no one won anything and everyone understands that. Which is why direct conflicts between Russia and NATO are fiction and barely worth discussing due to being brought to an abrupt end by saying "nukes". [editline]3rd February 2016[/editline] [QUOTE=Da Bomb76;49666513]Oh yeah the Grand Duchy of Lithuania: a Polish colonial state made up entirely of Ukrainians, Belorussians, Balts, and Estonians. Which was the land fought over by Russians, Poles, and Swedes for centuries. I never said that all of Russia's wars were of its own making and because of its own expansion. [b]But there have only been two real instances where lands of ethnic Russians were targeted for conquest. The rest of the time was spent fighting over the Balts and lesser Slavs[/b]. And they should really just be the property of Russia just like the good ole' days amirite? Anything else is "encirclement." The West is just denying Russia it's destiny as the owner and sole proprietor of Eastern Europe.[/QUOTE] I don't get how this is relevant at all. Russia grew the most in size to the west due to constant pressure, that expansion was mostly "defensive" in a sense of removing threats and creating a buffer zone. That's the entire point of the argument, Russia became an empire out of necessity, that's why lands populated by ethnic Russians were never targeted after that (except by Napoleon, but fine). The events that followed starting with XVIII century are irrelevant for this argument, how Russia held on to these lands etc. Of course none of it justifies the claim to "ownership of Eastern Europe", no questions there. It's just that outright denying that earlier (and the biggest) expansions were dictated by necessity as "propaganda bullshit" is plain wrong. That's an explanation as to why so many Russians bring this "encirclement" up. Our history influenced our national way of thinking a lot, that's true for any nation. Many still think that Russia is either an empire or it is left vulnerable.
[QUOTE=TheNerdPest14;49665967]What ever happened to MAD scenarios anyways?[/QUOTE] MAD was almost never a legitimate thing, all powers during the Cold War planned to fight through the nukes and conduct war over a nuclear wasteland, if needed. This is why Soviet tanks and APCs had great NBC protection to make sure the crew can traverse an irradiated area.
[QUOTE=Jund;49665095]nukes would never be used unless it's an unwinnable defense of the homeland otherwise do you think NATO and Russia would start flinging nukes and destroy the entire world because of a few Baltic states?[/QUOTE] Wouldn't be the first time [img]https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/236x/e7/03/b5/e703b5a07715de3fee9787e981598ccc.jpg[/img]
[QUOTE=adamsz;49667025]Wouldn't be the first time [img]https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/236x/e7/03/b5/e703b5a07715de3fee9787e981598ccc.jpg[/img][/QUOTE] Baltic Not Balkan good god
[QUOTE=Dark RaveN;49666446]This post is short of a crying eagle. [editline]3rd February 2016[/editline] That is a really stupid example, considering that Russia was the defender, not the aggressor.[/QUOTE] """""""""""""defensive""""""""""""""""
[QUOTE=Zillamaster55;49667037]Baltic Not Balkan good god[/QUOTE] I think he meant that big powers already have gone to war over some small irrelevant nation rather than that Baltic states are literally the same as Balkan states.
[QUOTE=Savant231A;49665284]NATO is turning into a shitty dota 2 game where you keep losing because your opponent is like a group of level 15 guys with instant respawns while you and the rest of your NAToes are level 3s and this guy Captain Freedom is level 25 but can't tank the damage from the opposing team like jesus christ, this nato shit won't work if we only have america doing all the shit[/QUOTE] And then Turkey is that one guy who feeds the enemy team.
[QUOTE=gudman;49667083]I think he meant that big powers already have gone to war over some small irrelevant nation rather than that Baltic states are literally the same as Balkan states.[/QUOTE] Well in that case I guess there's a minor parallel. It's just that there's a horrid plague in the US that constantly confuses Baltic with Balkan and it makes me tear my hair out
[QUOTE=Sir_takeslot;49667088]And then Turkey is that one guy who feeds the enemy team.[/QUOTE] ban kurds or feed
[QUOTE=Zillamaster55;49667037]Baltic Not Balkan good god[/QUOTE] [t]https://i.imgflip.com/ae11i.jpg[/t] Sorry switching between thread messes with the brain. I'm going to forfeit my major in history now... This better? [img]http://www.naval-history.net/PhotoWW1-01bbRusSlava1PG.JPG[/img]
[QUOTE=Turing;49666973]MAD was almost never a legitimate thing, all powers during the Cold War planned to fight through the nukes and conduct war over a nuclear wasteland, if needed. This is why Soviet tanks and APCs had great NBC protection to make sure the crew can traverse an irradiated area.[/QUOTE] I thought the reason was just so that they would be able to operate in areas that have been tactically nuked? Iirc one of NATO's doomsday plans was even to use tactical nukes to form a wall of radiation between Russia and Western Europe (sorry Eastern Europe).
[QUOTE=adamsz;49667102][t]https://i.imgflip.com/ae11i.jpg[/t] Sorry brain goes one way, head goes the other [/QUOTE] Sounds like Putin reasoning :v:
[QUOTE=Mr. Someguy;49667107] Iirc one of NATO's doomsday plans was even to use tactical nukes to form a wall of radiation between Russia and Western Europe (sorry Eastern Europe).[/QUOTE] This sounds kind of stupid. Idk if such plans existed, but it's stupid.
[QUOTE=Zillamaster55;49667119]Sounds like Putin reasoning :v:[/QUOTE] I'm not too good with explaining words quickly, it's the Aspergers mostly. I know my history, but I get mixed up when I try to be funny sometimes. [QUOTE=gudman;49667139]This sounds kind of stupid. Idk if such plans existed, but it's stupid.[/QUOTE] Gives new meaning to the term "We'll Meet Again" in Dr. Strangelove right? Even after a nuclear holocuast the military stills wants to fight.
[QUOTE=wraithcat;49666198]Mind you, the same argument applies to the US and to a significant degree still exists today in the incredibly large amount of US military bases around the world, including in areas that are kinda tired of it by now.[/QUOTE] Not particularly. We don't compare well with other nations, our strategic situation is unusual. Our borders are very secure, and we control most of the possible sea and land approaches to the homeland. Our neighbors are, if not friendly and stable, at least unwilling to start any fights. Our economy, though unstable and at times exploitative, is unmatched. At this point, our main strategic goal is to build global hegemony and prevent a rival power from rising. Russia is a possible candidate for rivalry. If they ever expand to the point where their borders are secure and get their economy on par with ours, they would be able to pose a serious challenge to American power on the world stage. They could even threaten our coast, provided they maintained ties with Cuba. Brazil is another possible candidate. If they ever managed to exert control over the their neighbors, they'd have the building blocks of a powerful economy in the shape of the massive system of navigable rivers running through northern South America. It's a similar river system that gave the US the start of our economy, the Mississippi system. It's also part of the reason Russia lacks an economy to match their size; they lack any extensive, navigable waterways. If Brazil ever managed to completely harness their local system, they'd be in an excellent position to challenge us.
[QUOTE=GunFox;49664625]And then the US Navy arrives in the Baltic Sea and their advance is met with a barrage of cruise missiles followed by the air power of basically every carrier within range. This is then followed by the B-2 bombers arriving and carpet bombing their positions. Not to mention what happens when the drones arrive. You have tanks? Adorable. We have unmanned aircraft with Hellfires. They are cheap and we have shit tons. Sure you can advance under AA coverage, but that means running your defense radar and attracting HARM missiles. Russia doesn't have the air power to do this. We own the skies. The report only covers the short term results. We know they can advance quickly. They know that doing so would be suicide after 72 hours. SO THEY WONT DO IT. No sense wasting the funding to deploy armored brigades.[/QUOTE] which would take days, long after they've taken over most of the baltics. they would most likely prepare cannons or have some sort of plan to stage an offense on our navy anyways and if you take a look, yes, you do have two areas that you could attack from, but they only have one exit so their escape plans are very limited, leaving the navy susceptible to being boxed in and fucked regardless of whether it sits in the mediterranean or the baltic sea
Jesus christ, someone really thinks this scenario of Russia invading eastern Europe has a slightest possibility of getting real? What's even the point of this move? Even if the invasion will be successful, with NATO backing up from eastern Europe, what will we do with these lands? There would be literally tens of millions of eastern europeans being really, really pissed off at us and no feasible way to keep these states under control. Not to mention that this war will essentially mean an instantaneous economical collapse followed by the collapse of Russia as a state. Essentially for Russia invading Europe is just a really peculiar way to commit suicide.
[QUOTE=antianan;49667394]Jesus christ, someone really thinks this scenario of Russia invading eastern Europe has a slightest possibility of getting real? What's even the point of this move? Even if the invasion will be successful, with NATO backing up from eastern Europe, what will we do with these lands? There would be literally tens of millions of eastern europeans being really, really pissed off at us and no feasible way to keep these states under control. Not to mention that this war will essentially mean an instantaneous economical collapse followed by the collapse of Russia as a state. Essentially for Russia invading Europe is just a really peculiar way to commit suicide.[/QUOTE] That's actually one of the issues Russia's always faced after expansion; breakdown of internal security. Historically, the problem has been solved with violence and terror. It's going to be awhile before Russia's ready to expand again, the sanctions induced by Crimea have caused the other constraint, the economy, to kick into overdrive. That, combined with the resulting uproar and bolstering of US involvement, means that Putin will have to bide his time and stick to holding on to what he already has before moving again.
[QUOTE=GunFox;49664625]And then the US Navy arrives in the Baltic Sea and their advance is met with a barrage of cruise missiles followed by the air power of basically every carrier within range. This is then followed by the B-2 bombers arriving and carpet bombing their positions. Not to mention what happens when the drones arrive. You have tanks? Adorable. We have unmanned aircraft with Hellfires. They are cheap and we have shit tons. Sure you can advance under AA coverage, but that means running your defense radar and attracting HARM missiles. Russia doesn't have the air power to do this. We own the skies. The report only covers the short term results. We know they can advance quickly. They know that doing so would be suicide after 72 hours. SO THEY WONT DO IT. No sense wasting the funding to deploy armored brigades.[/QUOTE] This is the most "fuck yeah, America!" post I've ever seen, and not in a good way.
[QUOTE=Psychokitten;49667461]That's actually one of the issues Russia's always faced after expansion; breakdown of internal security. Historically, the problem has been solved with violence and terror. It's going to be awhile before Russia's ready to expand again, the sanctions induced by Crimea have caused the other constraint, the economy, to kick into overdrive. That, combined with the resulting uproar and bolstering of US involvement, means that Putin will have to bide his time and stick to holding on to what he already has before moving again.[/QUOTE] Russia has already overexpanded far too much, and the inevitable result is shrinkage. Crimea is going to eventually end up like Königsberg (or Kaliningrad as idiots call it) in that both are provinces not attached to the main part of the country which require a lot of active support and interest in to prevent being lost. Due to the weak ties to the country proper, the peoples in these regions will eventually (and already have been for some time) steadily losing their Russian identity due to their unique geographic location. With much of the internal parts of Russia being depopulated (villages and towns are being abandoned and east of the Urals becomes even more sparsely settled) and the demographic crisis (not to mention high birth rates among minorities and immigration), and not to mention the simply atrocious infrastructure (roads in Russia are terrible) the inevitable result is a steady loss of control over the outer regions and continuing weakness of the economy. The Moskali will ride high on the "triumph" of securing some shitty scraps of land, before economic stagnation and political incompetence and corruption make their mark. As long as their political system continues in its current form, there is little hope for a revival of the economy. Russia's not going to collapse (although they will lose control over the Caucaus eventually), but it's not going to be great again. The Russia of the future will be weaker and more disorganized state, in which chaotic periods are followed by periods in which some kind of strongman rises to power and temporarily holds back the decay. This won't end until there is a fundamental change within the Russian social and political system, and this won't happen until the Moskali are ready to admit they aren't a world power anymore and stop chasing after old dreams.
[QUOTE=FlashMarsh;49667054]"""""""""""""defensive""""""""""""""""[/QUOTE] Go and read the overview on the wikipedia page. Russia did not cause that war at all.
[QUOTE=gudman;49666518]I don't get how this is relevant at all. Russia grew the most in size to the west due to constant pressure, that expansion was mostly "defensive" in a sense of removing threats and creating a buffer zone. That's the entire point of the argument, Russia became an empire out of necessity, that's why lands populated by ethnic Russians were never targeted after that (except by Napoleon, but fine). The events that followed starting with XVIII century are irrelevant for this argument, how Russia held on to these lands etc. Of course none of it justifies the claim to "ownership of Eastern Europe", no questions there. It's just that outright denying that earlier (and the biggest) expansions were dictated by necessity as "propaganda bullshit" is plain wrong. That's an explanation as to why so many Russians bring this "encirclement" up. Our history influenced our national way of thinking a lot, that's true for any nation. Many still think that Russia is either an empire or it is left vulnerable.[/QUOTE] Why was there pressure on Russia? Seriously, think about this. Other than the Turks and Tatars to the east and in southern Ukraine, who died a slow death and were easily absorbed, where has Russia had conflict with other powers? They fought with Sweden multiple times. Over what? Lands in the Baltics and to gain control over the Finns. There were the wars with Poland. What was the aims of those conflicts? To conquer Poland, ultimately slicing it into pieces to be squabbled over with the Germans, and savage the land for over a century. How about the Caucasus? Many many wars with the Turks to capture the various Caucasian people and move them from one oppression to another. Central Asia was swallowed whole with minor effort or resistance - Great Britain tried to assert their own influence to protect their Indian satrapies but ended up accomplishing little. The war with Japan was fought over distant colonial holdings where neither Russians nor Japanese people even lived. The 18th Century wars were numerous but entirely inconsequential for Russia. All were caused by grand-scale European politicking that had no influence on Russian security and served only to increase its influence. France invaded in 1812. Why? To conquer vast swaths of Russian land or to "contain" it? No, it was to enforce France's own imperial system in order to better fight the real enemy, Great Britain. In all of these wars, Russia was always part of a larger alliance of other European powers. A brief war was fought with Britain, France, and the Turks over the status of various vassal holdings in the south. The only consequence was that Russian expansion was rebuked in several areas. The first war with the German empire resulted in a minor reverse for the Russian Empire. After less than two decades, the losses were all regained with the exception of Poland. But that wrong was to be righted shortly*. What did I miss? Where was the defensive quality of these conflicts? Why did Russia need to continuously expand and trample over conquered people after conquered people in order to "defend" itself? This question does have an answer. If you assume that all of these lands and these people are the property of Russia by default, then it is indeed defensive to wage centuries of expansive warfare. Any resistance or "pressure" against this massive project is aggressive anti-Russian imperialism. And the very independence of the Baltics, Poland, Ukraine, Central Asia, etc. is a threat. There is another modern state that needs to justify its aggression and occupations in terms of "defense." It's borders are claimed to be "indefensible" and thus, the occupation of various other countries is necessary by definition. And it's also very interesting to see how the regressive left constantly attacks the crimes, infractions, and even the very existence of this one state but finds itself constantly allied and defensive of the actions of Russia. I'll let you fill in the blank of this curious conundrum for yourself. *The war with Hitler was the first (and only, barring the historically irrelevant case of the Mongols) real instance of a war of aggression specifically aimed at conquering Russian lands. But this occurred after Russia had already established a massive empire. And, again, Russia was allied with the rest of Europe and the US against Hitler. So it does nothing to explain the previous centuries of supposedly "defensive" wars.
I agree with this to an extent, Russia has been building up its forces for some time now and a head to head battle would be tough. Except the article fails to mention our airforce and navy that'd absolutely obliterate them, if not at least make them seriously reconsider an attack. [editline]d[/editline] looks like im late
Cold War II: This Time It's Personal :v:
[QUOTE=Da Bomb76;49668219]What did I miss? Where was the defensive quality of these conflicts? Why did Russia need to continuously expand and trample over conquered people after conquered people in order to "defend" itself? This question does have an answer.[/QUOTE] Imperialism is both defensive and offensive, since a good offense can be a good defense. Rome stopped having to worry about Gallic invasions after conquering them but players such as Caesar were probably more interested in the glory and gold.
[QUOTE=Da Bomb76;49668219]Why was there pressure on Russia? Seriously, think about this. Other than the Turks and Tatars to the east and in southern Ukraine, who died a slow death and were easily absorbed, where has Russia had conflict with other powers? They fought with Sweden multiple times. Over what? Lands in the Baltics and to gain control over the Finns. There were the wars with Poland. What was the aims of those conflicts? To conquer Poland, ultimately slicing it into pieces to be squabbled over with the Germans, and savage the land for over a century. How about the Caucasus? Many many wars with the Turks to capture the various Caucasian people and move them from one oppression to another. Central Asia was swallowed whole with minor effort or resistance - Great Britain tried to assert their own influence to protect their Indian satrapies but ended up accomplishing little. The war with Japan was fought over distant colonial holdings where neither Russians nor Japanese people even lived. The 18th Century wars were numerous but entirely inconsequential for Russia. All were caused by grand-scale European politicking that had no influence on Russian security and served only to increase its influence. France invaded in 1812. Why? To conquer vast swaths of Russian land or to "contain" it? No, it was to enforce France's own imperial system in order to better fight the real enemy, Great Britain. In all of these wars, Russia was always part of a larger alliance of other European powers. A brief war was fought with Britain, France, and the Turks over the status of various vassal holdings in the south. The only consequence was that Russian expansion was rebuked in several areas. The first war with the German empire resulted in a minor reverse for the Russian Empire. After less than two decades, the losses were all regained with the exception of Poland. But that wrong was to be righted shortly*. What did I miss? Where was the defensive quality of these conflicts? Why did Russia need to continuously expand and trample over conquered people after conquered people in order to "defend" itself? This question does have an answer. If you assume that all of these lands and these people are the property of Russia by default, then it is indeed defensive to wage centuries of expansive warfare. Any resistance or "pressure" against this massive project is aggressive anti-Russian imperialism. And the very independence of the Baltics, Poland, Ukraine, Central Asia, etc. is a threat. There is another modern state that needs to justify its aggression and occupations in terms of "defense." It's borders are claimed to be "indefensible" and thus, the occupation of various other countries is necessary by definition. And it's also very interesting to see how the regressive left constantly attacks the crimes, infractions, and even the very existence of this one state but finds itself constantly allied and defensive of the actions of Russia. I'll let you fill in the blank of this curious conundrum for yourself. *The war with Hitler was the first (and only, barring the historically irrelevant case of the Mongols) real instance of a war of aggression specifically aimed at conquering Russian lands. But this occurred after Russia had already established a massive empire. And, again, Russia was allied with the rest of Europe and the US against Hitler. So it does nothing to explain the previous centuries of supposedly "defensive" wars.[/QUOTE] Holy shit you write so much and entirely in circles. You keep going to conflicts of XVIII century and after, when I specifically stated that I don't disagree when it comes to that. Is that because you actually know little about what happened before then? You constantly refer to Mongols as conquerors that conquered Russian lands when it wasn't even the case, they didn't manage the land, nor did they actually wanted to manage it, they just made what was Muskovy Rus' a tributary state. You say that wars with Poland were over conquering Poland, which shows that you know forget of a period in Russian history that is referred to as the Time of Troubles or in Russian, Smuta. You don't seem to know that none of the many wars waged by Ivan the Terrible were over territorial expansion (apart from Kazan, and even that was to destroy the marauding Khanate), you don't seem to know that most wars with Sweden were waged around territories that were part of ethnic Russian lands, and were over trade with Europe long before Baltics became part of Russia. You keep referring to territories of modern eastern Ukraine as "Ukraine" when Ukraine or Ukrainian nation was nowhere in sight in XV century (hell, proper Russian ethnic identity was barely established at that time) and territories around Kiev were rightly considered an important cultural, religious and economic core of Russia at the time and the people who lived there weren't in any way "lesser slavs", they were about as Russian as Novgorod's Russians. For you it seems the history of Russia only started in XVIII century. Too bad that by then the territories of Russia were mostly already established.
[QUOTE=Turing;49664796]Russia has the greatest Anti-Air capabilities of any county in the world. If you would look at the map you would see that Kaliningrad is positioned right at the Baltic Sea. Just as you would have it, Kalinigrad is also chock-full of Russian AA units, Anti-Ship missiles, every fucking type of cruise missile system etc. As far as I know Kaliningrad is actually one of the most densely militarized places in the world. This alone would allow Russia to deny any US Navy carriers from coming near the Baltics in the Baltic Sea. Not to talk about what would happen if Russia seized Bornholm (which they have been practicing for since the Cold War). The Sea would be completely shut off to anybody trying to come in. The USA do not own the skies, Russia does. That is their entire strategy, and if you would read the article you would also see this mentioned, the troops were not able to get air support due to Russian AA. Drones are also a joke in this scenario, they can be used over a place you have complete air superiority, but not against a conventional enemy.[/QUOTE] Modern wild weasel sorties work like this: You scramble a low observable aircraft. They skirt the area, waiting for your air defense radar, which you have to deploy in order to engage the aircraft in the first place, to light up. They now know your position. They can then crush you with a HARM missile from over 90 miles away, or simply note your position and have a cruise missile flatten you. The aircraft is well inside the range of long range SAM missiles, but your ground defense radar is unlikely to be able to effectively detect/identify them until they are much closer. Now you can counter this by utilizing your ground defense radar in shorter bursts. This decreases the chance that they will positively identify your location, but then you run into a problem: Drones. We can take a cheap aircraft (clocking in at about 4 million per MQ-1, compared to 16 million for a Grison, 25 million for a gauntlet, or 120 million dollars for a gladiator SAM system) and fly them into the air defense zone. Each one can haul along a pair of hellfire missiles. They have to activate their ground defense radar and scan in order to locate these threats. In doing so, they reveal their position. We lose a 4 million dollar drone, of which we literally have hundreds, and they lose tens of millions of dollars of assets, and now leave hundreds of millions of dollars open to air strikes. If we don't want to use those predator drones, we can also use our QF series of target drones. We shoot them down with missiles anyways. We even specifically developed missiles to confuse ground defense radars: [url]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ADM-141_TALD[/url] [url]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northrop_BQM-74_Chukar[/url] It isn't that their systems are bad, quite the contrary, they have some brilliants surface to air capabilities, it is just that there are major problems inherent to using ground based air defenses. The report notes that NATO forces don't have much in the way of surface to air coverage. NATO countries don't focus on those because our doctrine recognizes the severe limitations they face vs strike aircraft. [editline]3rd February 2016[/editline] [QUOTE=Headhumpy;49667528]This is the most "fuck yeah, America!" post I've ever seen, and not in a good way.[/QUOTE] Yeah it really felt that way when I was writing it too. Also not in a good way. The article was just so silly though. People have this weird view about the US military that they could somehow win against it in a fight. Which again, sounds all "american fuck yeah", but that isn't my point. My point is this: In a straight up fight, nobody on earth is going to come close. I don't say that in some fuck yeah fashion, but as a simple statement of fact. Our military is massive, extremely well equipped, and launched from a nation that is strategically unassailable by any other nation. They simply lack the boats. This continued notion that they might however means that we continue to sink obscene sums of money into our military. We have super carriers. Eleven of them. There is only one other one that even exists, and it is a fraction of the size of even one of ours. Our carriers aren't alone, they show up with a navy that is the largest in the world by tonnage. So large that the next TEN countries COMBINED, still aren't the same size. It is such a ridiculous waste of fucking money. We not only field strategic bombers, something that basically only Russia also fields, but we field STEALTH strategic bombers. Each one costs a billion dollars. That is more than most nations spend on their entire air force combined for an entire year. Probably their entire military. We keep a fleet of nuclear armed submarines in the ocean at all times. In order to prevent espionage from revealing their location, we literally only know their theater of operations. We do this just in case someone manages to successfully disable every one of our nuclear missiles silos and prevent us from launching a conventional air attack with nuclear warheads. We sink hundreds of billions of dollars into this for a scenario that is stupidly unlikely to happen. The US fields a ridiculous military. Entertaining the notion that anyone is going to win in a straight up fight is silly and damaging because it fuels our need to funnel even more funds into it.
[QUOTE=GunFox;49664625]Russia doesn't have the air power to do this. We own the skies. The report only covers the short term results. We know they can advance quickly. They know that doing so would be suicide after 72 hours. SO THEY WONT DO IT.[/QUOTE] [URL="http://www.nationalreview.com/article/421473/f-35-defense-waste-danger"]yeah about that[/URL] [URL="http://airheadsfly.com/2014/02/24/us-defence-department-kills-the-warthog/"]its a bit more complex[/URL] [IMG]https://qph.is.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-340c05be0a958f6cecc8c065327258c7?convert_to_webp=true[/IMG] UAV's have limited, if any AA warning systems. It's effectively target practice. Yeah, you can use HARM missiles, but Russia also has the S-400. [QUOTE]As of September 2013, the Russian Armed Forces had five S-400 regiments: two in Moscow, one in the Pacific fleet, one in the Baltic Fleet, and one in the Southern Military District. From 2014, the army was to receive two to three sets of regimental units of S-400 systems every year.[85] Another S-400 regiment was to be put on combat duty around Moscow by the end of 2013. Russia plans to have 28 S-400 regiments by 2020, each comprising two or three battalions with four systems each, mainly in maritime and border areas.[/QUOTE] -Wikipedia 28 S-400 regiments by 2020, which is less than 4 years away now - that's a considerable amount. Any combat situation would have warning signs on both sides; not just publicly, but in espionage chatter, etc. So you can expect that number to go up and be reached much faster than by 2020. Wars usually have a long run-up. Overall, arguing over who has the "better military" is a bit arbitrary, since both are very well prepared - and increasingly so.
[QUOTE=Talishmar;49665371]War is costly, cooperation is profitable.[/QUOTE] Unless you're the US, apparently.
[QUOTE=Incoming.;49669207][URL="http://www.nationalreview.com/article/421473/f-35-defense-waste-danger"]yeah about that[/URL] [URL="http://airheadsfly.com/2014/02/24/us-defence-department-kills-the-warthog/"]its a bit more complex[/URL] [IMG]https://qph.is.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-340c05be0a958f6cecc8c065327258c7?convert_to_webp=true[/IMG] UAV's have limited, if any AA warning systems. It's effectively target practice. Yeah, you can use HARM missiles, but Russia also has the S-400. -Wikipedia 28 S-400 regiments by 2020, which is less than 4 years away now - that's a considerable amount. Any combat situation would have warning signs on both sides; not just publicly, but in espionage chatter, etc. So you can expect that number to go up and be reached much faster than by 2020. Wars usually have a long run-up. Overall, arguing over who has the "better military" is a bit arbitrary, since both are very well prepared - and increasingly so.[/QUOTE] Like I pointed out, surface to air systems have inherent flaws. Drones aren't what you use to destroy them. Drones are what you use to make them turn on their stations and give away their positions. The S-400's range is largely irrelevant. Radar only works up to the horizon and you need the radar to detect that a threat exists in the first place.
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